Humans can determine locations of sounds by comparing sounds perceived at each ear. The brain can determine the location of a sound source by utilizing subtle intensity, spectral, and timing differences of the sound perceived in each ear. The intensity, spectra, and arrival time of the sound at each ear is characterized by a head-related transfer function (HRTF) unique to each user.
In virtual-reality systems, it is advantageous to generate an accurate virtual acoustic environment for users that reproduce sounds for sources at different virtual locations to create an immersive virtual-reality environment. To do this, head-related impulse responses (HRIR) are computed. HRTF refers to the directional and frequency dependent filter for an individual, whereas the HRIR refers to the filter that must be computed in order to generate the audio for a sound source in at a particular location. HRIRs are computed based on the virtual acoustic environment experienced by the user. However, conventional approaches for determining (HRIRs) are inefficient and typically require significant amounts of hardware resources and time, especially when the sound sources are area-volumetric sound sources located within a near-field distance from the listener.